‘No. We are bracketed--it’s a tie. The judges say there is no choice between the designs--that they are singularly equal and singularly good. That she would do well to adopt either. Signed So-and-So, Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The result is that she will employ which she personally likes best. It is as if I had spun a sovereign in the air and it had alighted on its edge. The least false movement will make it tails; the least wise movement heads.’ ‘Singularly equal. Well, we owe that to our nocturnal visit, which must not be known.’ ‘O Lord, no!’ said Havill apprehensively. Dare felt secure of him at those words. Havill had much at stake; the slightest rumour of his trick in bringing about the competition, would be fatal to Havill’s reputation. ‘The permanent absence of Somerset then is desirable architecturally on your account, matrimonially on mine.’ ‘Matrimonially? By the way--who was that captain you pointed out to me when the artillery entered the town?’ ‘Captain De Stancy--son of Sir William De Stancy. He’s the husband. O, you needn’t look incredulous: it is practicable; but we won’t argue that. In the first place I want him to see her, and to see her in the most love-kindling, passion-begetting circumstances that can be thought of. And he must see her surreptitiously, for he refuses to meet her.’ ‘Let him see her going to church or chapel?’ Dare shook his head. ‘Driving out?’ ‘Common-place!’ ‘Walking in the gardens?’ ‘Ditto.’ ‘At her toilet?’ ‘Ah--if it were possible!’ ‘Which it hardly is. Well, you had better think it over and make inquiries about her habits, and as to when she is in a favourable aspect for observation, as the almanacs say.’ Shortly afterwards Dare took his leave. In the evening he made it his business to sit smoking on the bole of a tree which commanded a view of the upper ward of the castle, and also of the old postern-gate, now enlarged and used as a tradesmen’s entrance. It was half-past six o’clock; the dressing-bell rang, and Dare saw a light-footed young woman hasten at the sound across the ward from the servants’ quarter. A light appeared in a chamber which he knew to be Paula’s dressing-room; and there it remained half-an-hour, a shadow passing and repassing on the blind in the style of head-dress worn by the girl he had previously seen. The dinner-bell sounded and the light went out.